Penderyn The Headliner (Icons of Wales)

The ninth release in Penderyn’s Icons of Wales series honours the great social reformer and only Welsh Prime Minister of the UK, David Lloyd George. What you may not know, however, is that he quite inadvertently established whisky as the premium spirit we know and love today. The wartime Immature Spirits (Restriction) Act of 1915 legislated for the first time that spirits such as whisky had to be matured in oak casks for a minimum of three years.

Since 2000, it’s been Penderyn who’ve had the biggest Welsh influence in the world of whisky, helping to establish a Welsh single malt Geographical Indication (GI) and expanding to three sites (Brecon Beacons, Llandudno & Swansea). The distillery is unusually equipped with Faraday stills (a cross between a pot and column still) to achieve a light spirit, but they weren't used for this release. Instead, small pot stills that were added in 2014 were used, with this single malt matured in a combination of Jamaican rum & Ruby Port casks, and non-chill filtered.